The Love That Never Died
by Viscountess Ko
Summary: Spoilers for Love Never Dies. Raoul comes back and in Christine's last moments, they think of their unending love and how fate took a tragic turn.


BECAUSE CHRISTINE LOVED RAOUL AND RAOUL LOVED CHRISTINE DAMMIT. And that love totally transcends adultery.

So it's basically how Love Never Dies would have ended if the three main characters stayed you know... in character.

* * *

"Christine! Christine! I couldn't bear to leave you. It took coming here, seeing this monster again," Raoul spat the word with hatred, as he always did when speaking of the mysterious Phantom that plagued their lives for so long, the mysterious Phantom that once again proved he was only a man, "to make me remember how much I love you. I've wasted ten years… doing you and Gustave wrong. I tried to be the best that I could and I failed you. I failed you…"

"No… no… Raoul, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't appreciate the love we had while we had the chance," Christine admitted sadly. Finding the right words to explain the myriad of emotions she felt right then was impossible. She had so much to tell him, but most of all she was sorry and in her last breaths, she wanted him to know that most of all. Their life together had every opportunity to be beautiful.

The Phantom stood silently in repose across the pier, feeling as if he were back beneath the Opera House once more, allowing the woman he loved more than life and music himself to be with the man he knew would make her happy. It pained him so, but he wanted to do everything he could to make her final moments exactly as she would want them. He did feel an immeasurable amount of guilt because her imminent death was, in part, his fault.

Meg was crumpled on the ground, her blonde hair blowing waywardly, in shock and unresponsive to the scene that played out before her. Words wouldn't come. Sobs wouldn't come. Emotions wouldn't come. All she felt was the salty tears streaming down her pale cheeks, made colder by the icy sea wind blowing against her face.

Raoul sorrowfully cradled his beloved Christine in his arms, the sight of the rapidly spreading blood on her dress forcing him to choke back tears. At this tragic moment, the end of their love, he felt he needed to be brave for his darling Christine. Her brave knight in shining armor once more, just as he was the day he had gone into the sea to fetch her scarf. He had known that from that day forward, he could never forget her. She had, quite plainly, been the love of his life. How he wished he somehow had brought the scarf with him. She loved that scarf and would have taken comfort from having it with her.

He felt almost empathetic to Christine's situation, for as her life was no doubt flashing before her eyes, he felt the years and the memories of their life long love flashing before his.

The shaken man thought all the way back to that fateful day and how before he knew it, he had bounded into the freezing sea in mere breeches after a red scarf. He hadn't even thought before he acted, but it was the best decision he ever made. He ended up being deathly sick for the next few days, but Christine had come to his bedside for each of them, always lightly kissing his forehead as she left.

He thought back to the minutes that seemed to last for hours in the constricting and bruising grip of the Punjab Lasso, but all he could remember thinking about was Christine looking absolutely pallid and terrified in that white dress as she stood before the madman about to kill her fiancé. And how more than anything, even more than life itself he wanted her to be safe and away from the man that had terrorized her for so long. He also felt, in that moment of teetering between life and death, quite qualified to make that decision. Christine deserved her life and freedom. How could he bare to live if she had given that up for him?

He thought back to the moment their son Gustave was born. He hadn't even met his infant son yet, but even then he had known that something was simply not right and to the best of his ability, he tried to be a good father to the child whose mother he loved. He had always been able to see so much of Christine's love, energy and passion for music manifest in the small boy, but her music would always remind him of their time at the Opera House spent in fear of a phantom that was nothing more than a man.

It took Christine dying in his arms to realize that for ten years, he had been wrong. He hadn't been ready to love a child when all that love was reserved for Christine. He had made ten years of terrible mistakes and he blinked back the tears that had come anew as he felt a full decades worth of regret.

He could have been better.


End file.
